
The Tortures and Torments
of the Christian Martyrs
from
De SS. Martyrum
Cruciatibus
(a Modern Edition)
Chapter VII
Of the Brazen Bull, Frying-pan, Pot, Caldron,
Gridiron, and Bedstead; of the Chair, Helmet, and Tunic, and other Instruments
of Martyrdom of Red-Hot Iron
In
the preceding chapter we had discussed some of
the instruments of martyrdom by which condemned persons were burned;
it only remains now to discuss the other instruments through which the
same or a similar manner of torture was inflicted. We will begin first
with the Brazen Bull, one of the most unimaginably cruel
devices of punishment used among the ancients. The Brazen Bull, or Bronze
Bull, was, in essence, a specially formed container into the which victims
to be tortured were cast by an opening, or door, that was located in
its side (as we see in the Acts of the Martyr St. Eustachius,
as well as the Dialogue of Lucian, called Phalaris). After the
door was shut, a fire was lighted about the bull, causing the victim
imprisoned within it to suffer indescribable agonies, and by their screams
and cries to imitate the bellowing of a bull. What is more evil still,
this brazen device was so cunningly wrought to the likeness of a real
bull that (as Lucian attests in the Dialogue named) movement
and voice alone were lacking to persuade anyone that it was a living
animal.
The inventor of this device (as Ovid tells us in the Tristia)
was an Athenian, an extremely clever man named Perillus. Thinking he
would be doing a great favor to Phalaris, the Tyrant of Agrigentum,
as one who ever delighted in novel tortures and was accustomed to find
his chief pleasure in inflicting cruel punishments, Perillus himself
became its first victim. By the Despot’s order, from whom he was expecting
no small reward, he was thrown himself into the bull to test the working
of his own invention. And so we find that Ovid writing the following:
Et Phalaris tauro violenti membra
Perilli Torruit;
infelix imbuit auctor opus.
(“And Phalaris roasted Perillus’ limbs in the cruel bull; the
ill-starred inventor was the first victim of his own handiwork”)
and to the same end, Propertius:
Et gemere in tauro, saeve Perille,
tuo.
(“And to groan, cruel Perillus, in the bull you invented”).
To these passages we may also add what
Valerius Maximus had to say of Perillus and his cruel device:
“Then there was that cruel inventor
of the brazen bull in which men were shut up and fires kindled underneath,
so that they were constrained by the long-drawn, though unseen,
torment to utter resounding cries, which took on the form of mere
bellowings, so that their wails of agony might not, being expressed
in human voice and language, appeal to the pity of the Tyrant Phalaris.
Now inasmuch as he was glad to rob the miserable victims of all
hope of pity, the artist was the first to be imprisoned in the bull
and deservedly to demonstrate the dreadful effects of his own device.”
More can be read of this in the Letters
(Pseudo-letters) of Phalaris, in Cicero’s, Against Piso, in Pliny,
in Ovid’s Tristia, and especially Lucian in the Dialogue entitled
Phalaris.
But more still! Not only did Perillus become a victim of his
own contrivance, but so did Phalaris himself. For the time eventually
came when his great cruelty and violence could be tolerated no longer
and the citizens of Agrigentum seized him, shut him up in the same bull
in which he had burned others, and roasted him alive.
Ovid commemorated his fate in these lines:
Utgue ferox Phalaris, lingua prius
ense resecta,
More bovis Phario clausus in aere gemas:
(“And like cruel Phalaris, the tongue first cut out with the
sword and imprisoned in Egyptian brass, may you groan and bellow
like a bull.”)
Valerius Maximus, however, would seem
to think differently as to the mode of this Tyrant’s death, for he writes:
“By his fierce invectives against
their cowardice, Zeno so roused the Agrigentines that they set on
Phalaris and stoned him.”
Cicero, in his, De Officiis, appears
to agree with him:
“Phalaris was renowned above all
mankind for cruelty, who perished not in an ordinary revolt, but
by a general uprising against him of the whole population of Agrigentum.”
Nevertheless we can reconcile the differing
statements of Ovid on the one hand and of Valerius Maximus on the other,
if we suppose the Tyrant was first attacked with stones, and afterwards
cast into the red-hot brazen bull.
Some endured this form of punishment as a result of their profession
of their Christian Faith. Indeed, so great was the rage and fury with
which the Heathen assailed Christ’s faithful servants, that they once
again revived the use of many types of excessively cruel, but antiquated,
instruments of Martyrdom. Among the Christians who were cast into the
brazen bull and there shut up within it to die were Saints Antipas,
Saint Eustachius, a Roman patrician, his wife, Theopistes, and his sons
Agapius and Theopistus; also St. Pelagia, virgin and martyr, all of
whom (as their Acts proclaim) sprang lightly and with alacrity
into the red-hot monster, and rendering fervent thanks to God; Eustachius
along with wife and sons in great joy, while Pelagia, the virgin of
Tarsus, sang with great gladness a Hymn of Triumph to God.
Furthermore, we read of still other Christian martyrs who were imprisoned
in the brazen bull — but by the Divine grace protecting them, came out
of it safely and unharmed. Among these was the soldier, St. Barbarus,
and St. Heliodorus, the latter of whom is thus commemorated under December
1:
“Anniversary of the Blessed Martyr
Heliodorus of Maghedo, a city of Pamphilia. Aurelian being Emperor
of Rome and Aetius Governor in the city of Maghedo in Pamphilia,
St. Heliodorus for preaching of Christ in that city was brought
before the Governor. When he refused to make sacrifice to idols,
he was instantly hung up and thrashed; and when he felt the bitterness
of the torment, he cried out, ’Lord Jesus Christ, help me.’ And
at once he heard a voice from Heaven saying, ’Fear not, I am with
thee.’ This voice was also heard by those who were holding the torches
already lighted to burn him — these and four others present who
saw Angels staying the torments, then themselves believed
in Christ, and for remonstrating with the Governor, were thrown
into the sea and so also received the crown of victory.
The Governor then commanded the brazen
bull to be heated and the Martyr to be cast into it; but no sooner
was this done than by his prayers, the monster which had been red-hot,
grew instantly cold. The Governor was all the more astonished because
he heard the man singing psalms inside the brazen bull, now cold.
Going to the brazen engine which, at one moment, had been shooting
out sparks, and at the next turned suddenly cold again, he reviled
the Saint, saying, ‘Wicked sinner! Did your magic arts prevail against
the fire?’ To which the holy man made answer, ‘No! My magic arts
are Christ! But give me three days’ time to think over in my heart
what I must do.’
Receiving this respite, the Governor
took him secretly to the Temple of the gods, and when Heliodorus
had made a prayer to the true God, all the idols suddenly fell down
and broke in pieces. When the Governor heard this, he was filled
with fury and ordered Heliodorus to be brought before him and then
hanged, and nails heated red-hot to be driven into his head.
When the Judge saw that the Martyr
remained unconquered, whatever the number and diversity of torments
he endured, he sent him away to the city of Atala, where, remaining
constant in his profession of the Faith, he was set in a hot frying-pan,
where he stood and prayed, continuing all the while unhurt.
Seeing this, all the bystanders believed
in the Lord, crying, ‘A great God verily is the God of the Christians.’
When the Governor saw many people converted to believe in Heliodorus’
God, and fearing that they might rescue him from out his hands,
he ordered Heliodorus to be carried back again to Maghedo, to which
the guards led him praying and singing psalms. Then the Saint was
questioned a second time, but only continued the more steadfast
in his former confession of Jesus Christ.
The Governor then commanded his tongue
to be cut out, and that he should be hung up and scourged in the
space of two hours. So after putting a collar on him, they dragged
him forth of the city. But the holy man signed to them with his
hand, and stood still to preach; and when his sermon was ended,
he was cut to pieces.”
Of
the Brazen Pot as an Instrument of Martyrdom
This is mentioned both in Holy Scripture,
in the Book of the Maccabees, and by Josephus in his work on
the same subject, as well as in the Acts of the Saints, especially
those of St. Boniface, St. Juliana, and St. Lucy. A pot was a very large
vessel made of brass, into the which condemned persons were stripped
and thrown, to be boiled or seethed within it.
The persecutors of the early Christians used many different sorts of
vessels for the torturing of offenders, particularly Christians. They
had frying-pans for lightly roasting or frying their flesh, and caldrons
and pots for thoroughly boiling or seething them. These pots were nothing
more nor less than ordinary kitchen pots for boiling meat withal, as
we find, for instance, in Varro:
“To spin wool, and at the same time
keep an eye on the pot, that the pottage be not burned;”
And by Plautus, in his Amphitryon:
Optimo jure infringatur olla cineris
in caput
(“He well deserves a pot of ashes be broken over his head”)
Also, Persius in his Fourth Satire
says:
Caepe et farratam, pueris plaudentibus,
ollam
(“Bring out, amid the clapping of the lads, onions and the pot of
pottage”)
These pots, then were simply very large
vessels made of brass, in which the martyrs were boiled as a punishment
at once terrible and ignominious. They were made (as we see from very
ancient artifacts often dug up from the ruins of Rome) in the likeness
of the pots we commonly use for cooking food, without rims, but having
two handles, which were part square, part round — square from the bottom
to the middle, round from the middle upwards to the brim, or else made
on the model of a pair of ears. On the other two sides they had two
partly hollow projections of iron facing one another, in which rings,
also of iron, were fitted, to enable the tormentors to more easily lift
and carry them where they would. All this will be found more plainly
and particularly shown in the pot which we have had drawn from ancient
examples to be seen in Figure XXII.
Different
Ways in Which the Servants of God were put into the Pot
Christians sometimes were plunged into
a pot head downwards; as we read in the Acts of the Martyr St.
Boniface:
“The Judge in anger ordered a pot
to be brought and filled with boiling pitch, and the holy martyr
— St. Boniface — to be cast into it head first. So the blessed martyr
of Christ, after signing the Sign of the Cross, was plunged into
the pot.”
In other cases victims were thrown into
the pot so tightly squeezed and doubled up that their heads were made
to touch their knees. This is attested to by Josephus in the following:
“He is put by the executioners’ hands
into the pot — such is the name given to this form of criminal punishment.
The press being turned or revolved, his holy head is forced to his
knees, and his body being thus reduced in height, the champion of
the Faith was squeezed miserably into the aforesaid pot.”
We should observe here that by the
press Josephus denoted some instrument for pressing or squeezing
— not, however, the great press or beam by which grapes and olives are
crushed and pressed, but rather a smaller device for pressing, such
as fullers, paper-makers, and printers chiefly use. Thus Pliny remarks,
in speaking of different kinds of paper,
“Then are they squeezed in the presses
and dried in the sun, and the several sheets joined together.”
Of
the Caldron
There was yet another sort of vessel
used in antiquity (as the Histories of the Martyrs bear witness)
for the boiling of Christians: a very large brazen caldron which
was filled with boiling oil, pitch, molten lead, or wax, into which
the victims were cast. We read of this often in the Acts of the
Blessed Saints, in particular those of Saints Saba and Zerio, and St.
Veneranda, virgin and martyr. We hear of such a caldron again in the
Book of the Maccabees (Chapter VII) and in Josephus’ History
of the Wars of the Maccabees. As to its shape, this appears to omit
other references, sufficiently indicated by the lines in Ovid’s Metamorphosis:
Vina dabant animos, et prima pocula
pugna,
Missa volant, fragilesque cadi, curvique lebetes.
(“Wine stirs their spirit, and the fight begins with hurling
flying cups and fragile jars and rounded caldrons.”)
In both these vessels were tortured great
numbers of Christ’s soldiers — in pots, Saints Boniface, Juliana, Lucy,
Erasmus; and in caldrons, St. Zeno, St. Veneranda virgin and martyr,
Saints Saba, Marianus, Pantaleemon, Eulampius and his sister Eulampia,
Zenobius and Zenobia, brothers and sisters.
Of
the Frying-Pan as an Instrument of Torture
Mention is made of the frying-pan in
the Second Book of the Maccabees (Chap. VII) and in many collections
of the Acts of the Blessed Martyrs, such as those of St. Eleutherius
the Bishop, Saints Fausta and Justina, virgins and martyrs.
The frying-pan — as the name implies and from what we find in the
Histories of the Blessed Martyrs — was a wide open dish or plate,
which (as we see in the Acts of the Martyrs) was filled with
oil, pitch, resin or sulfur, and then placed over a fire; when it began
to boil and bubble, the Christians of either sex who had persisted steadfastly
and boldly in the profession of Christ’s faith were then thrown into
it, to the end they would be roasted and fried like fishes cast into
boiling oil. So in the Hymn of St. Romanus we find Prudentius writing
as follows concerning one of the seven Maccabees brothers who was tortured
in this way:
Videbat ipsos apparatus funerum
Praesens suorum, nec movebatur parens,
Laetata, quoties aut olivo stridula Sartago frixum torruisset puberem.
(“The mother was present, gazing on all the preparations for
her dear one’s death and showed no sign of grief, rejoicing rather
each time the pan, hissing hot above the olive wood, roasted and
scorched her child.”)
As to its shape, we believe it to have
been round since all vessels that we use for seething or frying, or
for boiling water, are circular. Nor can it really be doubted that the
vessels in use today have been modeled on the types we have found used
throughout history. One of these is to be seen to this day in the Church
of St. Laurence beyond the Walls, in which that most gallant champion
of Christ, St. Laurence, baptized a soldier of the Emperor’s guard,
by the name of Romanus.
Of
the Manner in which Martyrs were Tortured in the Frying-Pan
Christian Martyrs were roasted in frying-pans
in two different ways. Sometimes they were cast bodily into it with
faces looking heavenward. In these cases, we must conjecture that
there was some proportion between the instrument of torture and the
man tortured within it, and so we assume that victims of this form of
torture were thrown into a frying-pan which was more an oval than one
perfectly round. At other times (as we see in the Acts of St.
Euphemia) they were not set bodily into the pan, but rather, limb by
limb. This is expressly described in the account of the holy virgin
St. Euphemia, where we read:
“Priscus the Proconsul commanded
her to be divided limb from limb with knives, and the severed members
to be roasted in a frying-pan ...”
Now in this case it would seem likely
that the frying-pan was more of the round variety.
It must be further understood that the Blessed Martyrs, when roasting
in the pan, were forced down in it by means of iron forks; for the purpose
of the iron framework or gridiron and of the frying-pan seems to have
been one and the same, both of them being used for burning Christians
to death. So just as martyrs which were broiled on the gridiron were
held down on it by the executioners with iron forks (as stated in the
Acts of St. Laurence), similarly those tortured in the frying-pan
may be surely assumed to have been pushed down and held within it in
the same way.
Of
the Gridiron and the Iron Bed
Having examined the instruments with
which the Christian martyrs were boiled or fried, we now
turn our attention to those means by which their flesh was broiled by
their heathen tormentors. These were the gridiron and the
iron bed, both of which are frequently mentioned in the various
Acts of the Blessed Martyrs.
Gridirons are spoken of in the Histories of numerous Saints,
such as Saints Eleutherius, Conon and Dulas, of St. Domna virgin and
martyr, and of St. Laurence; iron beds also in the Acts
of St. Eleutherius, as also in those of the most sainted Clement of
Ancyra, Plato, and others.
As to the iron frame or gridiron,
its nature is sufficiently indicated both by the name, its description
in the Histories of the Saints, and by the gridiron itself upon
which the most Holy Confessor of Christ, St. Laurence, was broiled,
and which is religiously preserved in part at the Church of St. Laurence
in Lucina, and in part at Paneperna. It was framed of three iron bars
set lengthwise and a span distance one from the other, of one finger
thick, two broad, and of a length suitable for its purpose, with seven
or more shorter pieces of iron placed crosswise, and likewise separated
a span from each other. Of these some were round, and some square; the
square ones being the two which were joined to the ends of the longitudinal
bars to brace together and strengthen the whole gridiron. There were
likewise fixed at each corner and in the middle, supports also of iron,
raising the framework a little off the ground and serving as legs.
We do not imagine that all gridirons were made with only three bars
lengthwise, but only some; for we read in the Acts of St. Laurence
how the Emperor commanded an iron framework of three bars to be brought
for the burning of the holy man, from which it follows that such were
to be found among the ancients both with three and with more bars.
Martyrs
Who were Roasted on the Gridiron
The following were tortured on the gridiron,
upon which, as we said, they were held down with iron forks, and so
roasted upon the fire laid underneath: Saints Laurence, Dulas, Eleutherius,
Conon, Dorotheus, Macedonius, Theodulus, Tatian, and Peter. The last
we find commemorated on March 12th in these words:
“At Nicomedia the martyrdom of the
Blessed Peter. Being Chamberlain to the Emperor Diocletian, he vigorously
remonstrated with him concerning the excessive torments the Christian
martyrs were made to endure. For this, he was by his master’s order,
brought before him and hung up and beaten for a very long time with
scourges, then rubbed with vinegar and salt, and finally broiled
on a gridiron over a slow fire. Thus was he inheritor at once of
St. Peter’s faith and name.”
Still other facts concerning this same
holy martyr are to be found in the Acts of those most glorious
soldiers of Christ, Saints Dorotheus and Gorgonius. These are now in
manuscript, but we hope by God’s gift soon to edit and print them, together
with numberless other Histories of Saints of either sex never
before published. This task accomplished, we further propose, if life
be spared us, to write careful notes upon the several Lives of the Saints
thus far published, in which we shall endeavor, so far as lies in us,
to distinguish what is true and certain from what is doubtful or found
to be definitely untrue.
So much for the gridiron, from which another instrument called the
Iron Bedstead in the Acts of the Blessed Martyrs was altogether
distinct. For in the History of St. Eleutherius, Bishop and Martyr
— mentioned earlier — we read how the Tyrant, who was ordering him to
be tortured, directed the holy man, after he had been tormented at his
command on an iron bed, to be removed from it and roasted on
an iron grid — which shows beyond a doubt the iron bed to have
been entirely distinct from the gridiron. To clarify this distinction,
let us cite the very words of the account:
“Then Hadrian, boiling with rage,
ordered the brazen bed to be brought, and commanded the man
to be laid thereon and bound legs and arms to the four corners,
that his tender limbs might be stretched and racked. This done,
fire was set underneath. ... But when an hour had passed, the Emperor,
thinking him dead, ordered the bands to be loosed. Then stretching
out his hands, St. Eleutherius said to the Romans, ‘Great is the
Lord of the Christians, whom those most blessed saints, Peter and
Paul, preached to us; who performed many signs and wonders in this
city and struck down to the earth that notorious Simon Magus, which
did glorify and worship the same devils as Hadrian does.’ The Emperor
then ordered the gridiron to be smeared with oil and brought
in, and commanded fire to be set underneath. ...”
This is from the Acts of St. Eleutherius,
from which we clearly gather that the gridiron was a different instrument
of torture from the iron bed. It is further confirmed by what is written
concerning the same holy man in the Roman Martyrology on April
18th, as follows:
“At Messina, anniversary of the Blessed
Martyrs, St. Eleutherius, Bishop of Illyricum, and St. Anthia, his
mother. Illustrious for the holiness of their life and wonder of
their miracles, under Hadrian they overcame the pains of the iron
red-hot bedstead, the gridiron and the frying-pan boiling with oil,
pitch, and resin ...”
This once again shows that the gridiron
was distinct from the iron bed which (as we find in the
Acts of the Martyrs) was made in the likeness of a real bedstead,
oblong and raised somewhat from the earth in order to place fire underneath
it, with a number of iron bars carried across from side to side to take
the place of the usual planks, leaving a space between each.
The following are the names of the most glorious martyrs who were tortured
on the iron bed: Saints Eleutherius, Clement of Ancyra, Plato, of whom
we have already spoken, as well as Saints Olympiades, Maximus, Pegasius
— and many others, whose names and numbers God alone knows.
Of
the Chair, Helmet, Tunic, and other Instruments of Iron Heated Red-Hot
Besides these iron frames and bedsteads,
the Heathen had still other instruments for tormenting Christians, one
of which was the iron chair heated red-hot. This is testified
to in the Acts of Saints Paul and Juliana, by St. Gregory of
Nyssa in the Life he wrote of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, and likewise
by the History of Saint Blase, in which we read the following:
“Again the Judge commanded
seven seats of brass to be brought in, and commanded the women,
seven in number, who during the tormenting of St. Blase had collected
the drops of his blood as they fell, to sit upon them, one in each.
Then the seats were heated so hot that sparks flew from them as
from a furnace heated to the utmost.”
The next instrument of torture
that we will discuss concerns red-hot helmets, that were also
used upon the Christians. This method of torture was customary among
the Heathen who often covered the heads of their victims on these occasions.
We see this in the History of the martyrdom of St. Clement of
Ancyra and that of St. Justus, a soldier, in which is written on July
14th:
“The day of trial of the Holy Martyr
St. Justus, who was of the city of Rome, a soldier serving under
the Tribune Claudius. Returning once from a victory over the Barbarians,
he saw a cross appearing before him like a crystal, and heard a
voice issuing from it. Instructed by it in the mystery of godly
piety, upon arriving in Rome he distributed all his goods to the
poor, exulting in the faith of Christ. But when this came to the
ears of the Tribune, and Christ’s martyr would not deny the profession
he had made, he sent him to the Governor Magnentius. Questioned
by him and found to be constant in his steadfastness to the Christian
faith, he was ordered to be scourged with whips of raw hide, and
afterward to have his head capped with a fiery helmet, and iron
balls, heated red-hot, to be put under his armpits. All these torments
and others of a similar kind the Blessed Martyr bore unflinchingly,
blessing God all the while, and was finally cast into a furnace,
where he finally died, although his sacred body remained whole and
unconsumed, not a hair of his head being burnt by the fire into
which he was thrown.”
No more need be said about the fiery
helmet.
We must not, however, think that the fury of the Heathen was satisfied
by these many dreadful tortures inflicted on the holy martyrs, or that
their cruelty was in any way diminished against Christ’s servants. Rather,
by the constancy of the Martyrs’ and their refusal to disavow Christ
in the face of the most grievous pain and certain death, their rage
was all the more inflamed and they constantly sought new and still more
painful devises yet with which to torment them with fire. To this end
were the Matryrs clothed in the iron burning tunic, as we read
in the case of St. Erasmus, or their temples were pierced with red-hot
nails, as in the case of the martyrs, Saints Victoricus and Fulcianus;
or they were burned under the armpits and sides by means of iron
spikes heated to a great temperature, as with St. Taracus and his
companions; or else they were made to wear shoes of red-hot brass,
as is told of St. Antymus, Bishop of Nicomedia, or compelled to walk
shod in iron shoes nailed on with red-hot nails. Thus we find it
written on May 22 concerning the Blessed Martyr, St. Basiliscus:
“Day twenty-second, anniversary of
St. Basiliscus, martyred under the Emperor Maximian, from the district
of Amasea. Imprisoned on account of his profession of Christ’s faith
by Agrippa the Governor, he was repeatedly shod with iron shoes
nailed on with red-hot nails, and ordered to be driven along the
road leading to Comana. And when on the way they had come to a certain
place where dwelt a woman named Trojana, they bound the holy man,
his hands tied behind his back, to a barren plane-tree, which tree
the Saint, by praying to God, made green again, and caused a fountain
suddenly to bubble forth from the ground. And seeing these things,
the soldiers and the woman all believed in Jesus Christ. Moreover
when he reached the City of Comana, and could in no way be induced
to make sacrifice, he prayed to God, Who sent down fire from heaven
and burned up the Temple and idol of Apollo. At this the Governor
was greatly angered, and commanded the Martyr Basiliscus to be cut
to pieces and cast into the river. Thus did he win the crown of
martyrdom, to the praise and glory of Almighty God.”
CHAPTER VIII
Illustrations
for Chapter VII:
Chapters:
1 -
2 -
3 -
4 -
5 -
6 -
7 -
8 -
9 -
10 -
11 -
12

Totally Faithful to the Sacred
Deposit of Faith entrusted to the Holy See in Rome
“Scio
opera tua ... quia modicum habes virtutem, et servasti verbum
Meum, nec non negasti Nomen Meum”
“I
know your works ... that you have but little power, and
yet you have kept My word, and have not denied My Name.”
(Apocalypse
3.8)
Copyright © 2004 - 2023 Boston Catholic Journal. All rights reserved. Unless
otherwise stated, permission is granted by the Boston Catholic
Journal for the copying and distribution of the articles
and audio files under the following conditions: No
additions, deletions, or changes are to be made to the text
or audio files in any way, and the copies may not be sold
for a profit. In the reproduction, in any format of any
image, graphic, text, or audio file, attribution must be
given to the Boston Catholic Journal.
|
|